Disc wheels from Glum

The four disc wheels from Glum, in front of them the axle of another car

The Glum disc wheels are four wooden disc wheels found in Vehnemoor in the municipality of Wardenburg in the district of Oldenburg , which are around 3500 years old. They come from the early Bronze Age and have been preserved in the damp peatland . The wheels represent a significant find in the history of the wheel .

location

The site lies with the peasantry Glum 10 km southwest of Oldenburg on the eastern edge of the Vehnemoores. It is located about 230 meters from the edge of the Geest in the former moor. At the time of their laying down, the disc wheels were lying on the bottom of a shallow pool on the edge of the moor between the Geestrand and the rise to the high moor .

discovery

In 1880, while cutting peat in Vehnemoor , a farmer came across a wooden disc wheel with a tubular wooden bushing in the middle. The bike was almost on the sand in the deepest peat area. He hid the find and let it dry in his barn. When the peat cut was continued in 1881, the farmer discovered another bike a few meters from the first site. He brought both recovered bikes to the Oldenburg Museum , which bought the find for three marks . In 1883 two more wheel discoveries were made in the immediate vicinity of the site. The wood has been preserved for thousands of years due to the storage in the moist moorland with favorable preservation conditions for organic material .

description

The four wooden disc wheels are made of alder wood and have a diameter of 75 centimeters. They were probably part of a four-wheeled vehicle. In the middle of each wheel, a round 25 cm long tubular wooden tube is inserted as a socket , in which an approximately 10 cm thick axle of a vehicle ran. The bushes made of soft birch wood were a wear part so that the elaborately manufactured wooden wheels lasted longer.

The wooden wheels were made from a tree trunk at least 80 cm thick. They were created as planks extracted radially. Based on the traces of work, this was done with an ax and adze that had metal blades. A freshly made bike weighs around 15 kg. As a result of the dehydration, the finds now weigh only 6 to 7 kg.

One of the wheels has a chafing groove created by the body on which the lurching wheel wore. Straight lines on the treads of two wheels suggest a rigid front axle . The cut can result if the front end cannot be pivoted and the draft animals pull it to the side when changing the direction of travel .

The wooden wheels were dated using the C14 method , according to which the wood was dated from between 1750 and 1550 BC. BC.

Laying down

The horizontal position of the wheels indicates that they were deliberately deposited. Due to their proximity to each other, the filing took place at the same time. A ritual laying down is not accepted; Neither could they be disposed of as waste, as the wheels were in a usable condition. The most likely thing is to put the wheels in a pond to water them. Thereafter, for reasons unknown, the wheels remained in their position and were not resumed. The watering could give the wheels made of different materials a firm hold again. This method has always been known to wheelwrighters and turners .

presentation

The four wheels in the State Museum for Nature and Man in Oldenburg

The disc wheels are presented in the permanent exhibition of the State Museum for Nature and Man in Oldenburg . From September 21, 2018 to January 6, 2019 they were in the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin in the exhibition Moving Times. Archeology in Germany , which took place on the occasion of the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018. In the exhibition, the disc wheels belong to the sub-topic of routes and locomotion within the topic of mobility .

literature

Hajo Hayen : Four disc wheels from the Vehnemoor near Glum. (Wardenburg municipality, Oldenburg district) , 1972
Hajo Hayen: Four disc wheels from the Vehnemoor near Glum. (Wardenburg municipality, Oldenburg district) in: Die Kunde 23, pp. 62–83